Theresa Hak Kyung Cha: "There is no future, only the onslaught of time."

Eugene Jolas: "TIME IS A TYRANNY TO BE ABOLISHED."

Black Hole,noun.

1. a region of space having a gravitational field so intense that no matter or radiation can escape.

2. A ground which allows for the exchange of fluids.

3. A series of comics by Charles Burns concerned with a sexually transmitted disease causing mutations in teenagers. The cause (and ultimate consequences) of the infection are never fully realized, and the disease becomes evocative of the inchoate sexual and gendered identities of adolescence; the comic, however, never achieves the closure of what we might call "allegory." At the end of the series, a young woman floats on her back off the coast of Washington, and thinks to herself, I'd stay out here forever if I could.

Dear Arcadia,

When I think of your face, I think of light. I think of when I was in college with the tree outside the window, with the late autumn sun filtering through.

MY WINDOW WAS MY IRIS. MY SKULL WAS MY PROJECTOR.

Wordsworth: "A tranquilizing spirit presses now / On my corporeal frame, so wide appears / The vacancy between me and those days"

Before I went on medication.

Before I fell in love.

Before I had cats.

Before I woke and felt unliving.

Before my frontal lobe developed.

Before I pissed sitting down in eternal night.

Before I woke with red spots on my hands.

Before I said I came from the dead.

Before I channeled the pasture to back of my head.

It was never about Nature. It was never about ferns. It was never about woods. If it ever was, it was the River Derwent. If it ever was, it was Woods of the Heart.

It was the way the body saw itself, and saw itself seeing itself, and made a pact with the youngish land.

I’m not a Romantic / I don’t want my body to disappear

I want to make my body a permeable garden

I want to make my body an Aeolian harp

A Threshold Crossed when I leave the homestead

A Threshold Crossed when I enter the room

A Threshold Crossed when they bruise my body

A Threshold Crossed I lose my words I die I sleep I wake I have a new tattoo of an eye on my palm

A Threshold Crossed for the Membrane Deer

A Threshold Crossed the blue circuit hissing

A Threshold Crossed I mingle my fluids

A Threshold Crossed when I speak to Doc Jenny

A Threshold Crossed when I ask myself questions . . .

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

KIDS OF THE BLACK HOLE TEACHING GUIDE

What are the constraints of narrative?

What are the constraints of "the speaker"?

What happens when the narrative surpasses its own frame — when its movements, rhetorical tropes, and epiphanies lead nowhere?

Consider: a.) the mossy interior of Hamlet's skull, and b.) Stanley Kubrick's seminal film The Shining. Famously, the set of the Overlook Hotel is architecturally impossible; its windows lead nowhere and its blueprint is unmappable. To what extent is the American narrative poem a haunted house? To what extent is it haunted by remnants of blood?

What if the narrative poem (in the canonical, institutionalized sense) is itself a broken mirror?

Virgil's triadic career progressed from Eclogues, to Georgics, to an Epic(The Aeneid). Similarly, Joyce's career progressed from the local and hermetic (The Dubliners) to the expansive and cosmic (Ulysses), and finally, to the arcane and oracular (Finnegans Wake). Hollis Frampton's film career followed a similar progression. Is there--ultimately--a difference between an eclogue and an epic? Does this even matter? Is this gendered focus on the male auteur a load of bullshit?

Further: do epics attempt to hegemonically assimilate the whole of existence to a single text? Is the epic a "utopia"?

Bernadette Mayer: "no one knows why / Nothing happens." Discuss.

True or False: Crossing Brooklyn Ferry.

True or False: I have wasted my life.

Content warning: self-harm, suicide.

Dear patient, please respond to the following questions to the best of your ability.

Do you have thoughts of self-harm? If so, have you fully acted upon them? Or, alternately: have you *partially* acted upon them? (Example: standing in the kitchen drying off the dishes with your parents or brother or uncle or loved one in the other room, dragging a dull steak knife repeatedly across your skin so it leaves a mark but doesn't break, as if to say: I recognize this body. I recognize it, I feel it, and I hate it.)

Do you consider yourself "anxious" or "depressed"? Please rate your maladies on a scale of one to ten, with ten being the worst.

Do you have thoughts of suicide?

Do you have thoughts of leaving home?

Do you have thoughts of returning to your tiny hometown where everyone is dying, moving into a cabin in the woods, working at the liquor store on Route 9, and, on the weekends, a) going to parties where you might see people from high school who by this point have become heroin addicts or body builders, or b) going to the parties and leaving early and to go home and write your shitty novel, drinking a daily amount of whiskey that is somewhat excessive but not yet a "drinking problem"?

Did you recently learn that you'd lose your childhood home? Alternately, did you lose it a long time ago?

Did abuse make you a "damaged" person? Alternately, were you born "damaged," creating (or realizing) narratives of abuse to validate your fucked-up tendencies?

When you were once 19 or so, did you look out the window of your parents' house in the winter, see the moon on the snow, and think – with a frightening degree of seriousness – I have never loved someone, I will never love someone?

Do you wish to destroy these aimless feelings?

How much medication can we put you down for?

Do you wish to feel the orphic winds the moment you open your eyes in the morning, a silhouette of sweat surrounding your frame from the endless dreams of others touching you without your permission, saying you MEAN NOTHING, saying you ARE NOTHING; do you wish to channel the wind and see the red and rip it apart and breathe until green moss and tulips sprout from the sheets and cover every living thing?

A few weeks ago, K and I were visiting my parents in Vermont for the holidays.

We were with my friend G, walking the streets of Brattleboro, the town where I went to high school. We were drinking Merlot from a cardboard box. I'd learned recently that my parents were selling the business they'd run for ten years, as well as selling the house where I'd grown up. They wanted to live in separate houses, in a larger town. My mother had told me all of this the night before, very nonchalantly. These developments had been a long time coming, so on a certain level, I wasn't terribly surprised to hear the news. Nonetheless, there were several moments during the night where I'd have to leave the room, drink wine by myself, play my dad's piano, listen to the humidifier dripping. K would come in after me, touch my back, say, Are you okay? and I'd say, Yes.

All of this to say: K and G and I were in Brattleboro, standing and drinking in the High Street Lot, overlooking downtown. We were speaking of the dead. This is not an elegiac abstraction. Beginning with the friend whose death I depict in Kids of the Black Hole, more and more of my high school classmates have died each year, at a shockingly high rate – from suicide, overdoses, violent freak accidents, etc. It's formed a daunting catalog. It makes me somewhat ashamed to write about it in this way; though I was personally familiar with a number of these individuals, I knew them with varying degrees of closeness, so to a certain extent, writing about these deaths feels exploitative – like they aren't my stories to tell. It's further complicated by the fact that when I left Vermont, I decided I wanted to start over completely, cutting ties with almost everyone I knew. (Levis: "My only advice is not to go away. / Or, go away. Most // Of my decisions have been wrong.") Nonetheless, I hear about these fucked-up instances through various channels (social media makes it hard to leave anything behind), and the sequence of deaths turns into a drone that follows me into my dreams; I wake up, look out the window, see the snow, feel distant from my home, feel close to my home.

G and I talk it through. I spit out the usual theories for the sequence of deaths: chronic unemployment, boredom combined with easy access to addictive and debilitating drugs, a lack of mental health resources. (All of this is a way of saying: rural despair.)

G says there are crystals, deep in the mountain on the edge of town. They pull in the kids magnetically: they fuck them up. They fuck them up and make it hard to leave.

(And it's true. I don't feel like I ever left.)

* * *

When I write, I try to hold these crystals in my hand. I try to hold them in my hand and turn them.

Before I met and fell in love with K, writing was one of the first things that made me feel alive. I recognize that this is a cliché, but I mean it very literally: writing made me feel like I wasn't dead, like I didn't want to die.

While writing has also become an integral part of my identity, my self-actualization, my spiritual health, it also often feels like it's killing me. It forces me to unearth parts of myself – of my life, of my past – that are damaging, that might be better off left underneath the dirt.

I hold the crystals in my hand and turn them.

My friend J read my first book, Kids of the Black Hole, and said, "This is the site of trauma." He read my second book, The Wound Is (Not) Real: A Memoir, and said, "This is the analysis of trauma."

I think about Deleuze's crystal-image – that which collides the actual and the virtual, which allows the present and the past to coexist. It allows us to see time. Writing as opening up a wound.

I wrote my first book without thinking. I wrote it while I was still learning how to write.

(That is one kind of writing.)

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

COMPOSITION NOTE 1:

Uncooked, uneven, effusive in a way that makes its edges glow, its language-fucks and appropriated rhetorical truisms pouring out like tears onto the sweater of a recently jilted teen.

COMPOSITION NOTE 2:

Poem as a thicket of temporal convergence.

SAY, DID I EVER TELL YOU I LIVED IN ARCADIA?

I made my own Arcadia in the utilities closet in the basement of an academic building. It was a product of my privilege. It was me in the cloud. It was the womb where I lived for six months like an animal born from another world and reborn in ours. I spent six months crying and listening to music. I spent six months staring at white walls under florescent lights. I was born into it. I was born into it. I went to the farmer. I went to her barn. I filled seven trashbags with wool and brought them to my closet, I made my Arcadia with oil on my hands, I dug through the wool stuck with tufts of sheepshit and felt it settle beneath my nails. I felt like I was digging in the crotch of God. I felt like I digging a hole in my lung. I pulled myself through the thicket and found a mouse, desiccated and shriveled, it looked like a mummy, it looked like a turd, its tiny legs were tucked at its sides and a nub where its tail once protruded.

IT WAS BLOODLETTING / it was HUMAN AND NOT HUMAN.

I projected light upon the wool. It was here I learned I was looking backwards / it was here I wanted nostalgia to bleed. I walked to the stream. I put in the bones. The deeper I stared into the wool, the denser the moss grew in my skull. I was raised in a thicket. I was born in a closet. I fingered the wound and light erupted.

COMPOSITION NOTE 3:

Making art became a process of:

ENTERING ART, WHICH WAS A HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL FIELD

SITTING CROSS-LEGGED ON THE SIDELINES BY THE HEDGES, IMAGINING THE GHOSTS OF COLLIDING BOYS

THE SAME COLLIDING BOYS WHO ONCE TORMENTED YOU

THE SAME COLLIDING BOYS WHO WERE DRENCHED IN SWEAT AND HELD WATER BOTTLES THROUGH THEIR HELMET-CAGES AND AND SOME OF THE FLUID ENTERED THEIR MOUTH AND SOME OF THE FLUID POURED ONTO THEIR FACES AND DRIPPED THROUGH THE MINOR BEARDS AND ADOLESCENT STUBBLE

THIS IS THE FIELD WHERE YOU HAD YOUR FIRST KISS. IT IS SPRINGTIME, IN THE LATE AFTERNOON. EVERYONE HAS GONE HOME FROM SCHOOL, EXCEPT FOR YOU. THE SUN TURNS THE FIELD BRONZE, AND THE GOALPOSTS FEEL LIKE THE EDGES OF WHAT YOU KNOW.

YOU STAND UP, AND YOU WALK TO THE HEDGES. YOU HEAR VOICES ON THE OTHER SIDE; MAYBE TRANSIENTS, MAYBE YOUR FRIENDS IN A CIRCLE PASSING A BOWL, PROBABLY SOMETHING ELSE

/ / /

To make art became a house of endless roomsWhere one felt solace in temporary shadeWith broken clocks and no descending moonNo eyes of boys who fuck the bluish brainOr tacks stuck in the churning skin of timeWith fluid bleeding through the plaster walls;The lovely voices on the other sideWere breathing soft inside the fragrant smallOf every back imprinted in thine eye.They turn their yellow innards inside out;The voices quiver & then begin to cryAnd bloom within the moss of thine own mouth.Thy peaceful eye can speak but cannot seeThe tender violence living in fields of thee